First Steps
by Foolscapping
Summary: "Sam has a messed up leg, and not much changes." Preseries to S5 finale.


**Genre:** Angst, Family  
**Pairing:** Gen.  
**Rating: **Teen+  
**Word Count: **~1,800  
**Warnings:** disability  
**Prompt: **S5 spoilers. Sam has a messed up leg, and not much changes.

**Author's Notes: **Not beta'd, just a quick little... idk, thing. I don't know. I just write random-ass stuff sometimes. The stuff I've been writing lately has been mostly Dean's POV despite Sam being my favorite character in the show. I don't know, maybe my inner Dean muse is strong this month. It's not anything special but I hope you like. :)

* * *

When Sam was born, he had a leg that turned funny. Toes bunched and curving awkwardly, foot clubbed a little, knee and hip twisted inward. He was weaker than he should be, got sick a lot, and his muscles weren't very strong. But Dean didn't worry about it as much as his mom or dad did, because Sam was a happy baby, and happiness is often all that ever really matters in the end. How could they look that fretful when Sam had such a big dumb grin?

* * *

It's months after mom died.

The therapist has Sam sitting up against a smaller physio roll, the rubber dark red so that chubby baby fingers contrasted starkly. She coos to him, tells him he's doing well, makes him stand on his own, feet as flat as his anatomy lets him, to reach for a toy; Dean watches silently — so silently, still too quiet for his age, still a hawk next to Sam, his hand curled on his denim-torn knee so that he doesn't reach for his brother's wavering, squirming figure. The woman (she seems to handle Sammy well, but Dean can't always trust that, can't completely let his guard down when Sammy could fall and hit his head on something) uses words like 'congenital skeletal abnormality' and 'occupational therapy' and his dad just ends up looking tired despite her best efforts to sound optimistic.

The therapist looks at him with a hopeful smile. "Would you like to help your brother with therapy?"

Dean is even more attentive if it's possible, eyes sparkling, and nods with all the resolution of a toy soldier. With one hand anchoring against his brother's legs, he sits enraptured by Sam's determination in reaching up for a rattle.

_Come on, Sammy, you can do it._

The therapist has to stretch Sam's muscles and ligaments, give him mobility in his joints, and it hurts Sam so bad that he screams until his face is red. Dean nearly cries with him as he holds one of his brother's hands between his two bigger ones.

He whispers hoarsely, "You'll be okay, Sammy."

* * *

John gives up on therapy.

They don't have the time and money, and there's something out there that puts them all at danger. They already have enough trouble scamming hospitals with false identities and insurances; they'll surely be caught taking Sammy to therapy twice a week every week. Dean and his father work with his little brother as best they can, though — home exercise programs on old loose leafs of paper with coffee stains in the lefthand corner, keeping a ritual of it even through John getting frustrated (dad is easy to frustrate, when it comes to Sammy, and Dean figures it's because that's how his dad shows he cares after Mom). John's face lights up more than it ever has since mom died, when Sam limps into Dean's arms. The kid is all drool and dry pasta sauce, and Dean loves the way his hair smells.

He ruffles Sammy's locks and they nap together while John compiles information from old dusty books.

* * *

"You know he can't do all the things you do — why the hell would you let him get on the roof like that?! I told you to watch out for him, Dean; I told you he's not... Christ, son. Christ. You can't let yourself get this careless again, do you understand? It could've been his life. If he'd fallen headfirst... I don't know. I don't know."

Sammy broke his leg. Dean won't forget who might as well have twisted it out of its socket with their bare hands.

* * *

"I don't want to be the freak for once," Sam says fervently. He's rubbing the brace running up the side of his thigh; Sam's a bionic man, Sam's got some sweet rims, Sam's got to not let people tear him down in a shitty world like this. Dean is livid, his arms folded tensely, and he wonders if he can find the kid who gave his brother a black eye so he can give him one, too. And then some. Because there's no one more fucking cowardly, teenager or adult, who would shove over someone who takes a full minute to get back up. No matter how many fighting moves he shows Sam and no matter how often he instills the importance of strength behind weaknesses, there's the elephant in the room: even if Sam didn't have a problem with being the smaller, handicapped kid, he had a problem being a hunter (a Winchester).

Normal? None of them were normal.

Only, Dean's not sure what Sam's alternative is, when all he can do is offer information from behind a cell phone.

Maybe... normal is what Sammy needs.

* * *

Sometimes the leg hurts. It has a hell of a lot of pins in it and Sam won't stop growing, so Dean's not surprised.

He slides to sit down on Sam's side of the motel and smooth's out the growing teenager's hair. Sam dry-swallows some pills and Dad is out hunting witches. Dean hates every single fact surrounding these circumstances.

* * *

Sometime during a thoughtless, stormy (rare) fight between him and his brother, Dean screams the addendum of, " - you fucking cripple!"

There's no excuse and no amount of forgiveness that Dean can accept, after the betrayed look Sam gives him.

It's why he gives himself a black eye.

A pathetic scene to envision, maybe a little dramatic, but it gets the job done. It's not like his brother'll do it for him, because the taller kid deals out punishment in wordless, watery stares. Sam finds him in the bathroom of their shitty little temp apartment, limps over, and pushes a cold bag of peas to his face in silence. His face is neutral, casual, and Dean is maybe a little tiny bit drunk, because the fight was stupid and the words linger in his head like mental ghosts. Sam says dryly, "You're crippled in the head, more like."

* * *

When Dean finds Sam in Palo Alto, he's stunned to find Sam limping around on his own - and doing a damn good job.

"I've been going to therapy again," he says, and Dean feels a twinge of guilt. "It's been better."

But the longer Sam's powers develop, the less he limps, the less pain pills he swallows down. Dean wishes he could celebrate; his brother is hunting with him. At his side. His gait is steady and he can aim a fucking shotgun without worrying that the blast will knock him off his feet, down to a floor he can't get off of. He only wishes the freakish visions and telekinesis and bad omens weren't ruining the one good thing that's happened to Sam since he walked away from this family.

Sam walks toward him in Cold Oak without so much as a quiver in his gait.

Jake grinds a knife into Sam's back like he's trying to turn Sam's gift into powder, and Sam doesn't walk anymore.

When Azazel dies, the power is sucked out of his brother's head; Sammy needs to wear a brace again.

Sam figures it's a small price to pay. He's still a decent hunter.

Dean's soul is a little more important, even if Dean isn't sure he agrees.

* * *

_'Goodbye, Sammy. I'm sorry.'_

* * *

Dean should've realized something was wrong when he came back and Sam was pretty much running track and field. But fuck, he was so happy to be out of that shit-hole down below, so tormented by it all, he never stopped to think much about Sam's functionality. And now that he thinks more and more about it, now that they've kick-started the Apocalypse, Dean realizes he hasn't been doing much of anything right these days. Sam shouldn't have gotten out. Dean shouldn't have left Sam to scream and writhe in that panic room alone. He'd - he was supposed to be the kid who helped Sam's therapist, right? The one who held his hand while he was screaming in pain, crying at someone manipulating his tense flesh? Where did that Dean go? Where did Sammy go?

* * *

"So we just go back to the way we were before?"

"No, because we were never that way before... Before didn't work. How do you think we got here?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I wanted to feel strong. All my life - you and Dad, you called the shots, you kept me in the dark, left me behind. I wasn't your equal; I was luggage. I was the kid who couldn't do anything, and Dad knew it, and you... you never said it, but you didn't have to. All my life, I've felt like a damaged antique you guys liked too much to part with."

"... Sam."

"Ruby made me stronger. I could - stand on my own. I wasn't your busted up kid brother anymore. And now... we, we can't fall into that same rut. You're gonna have to let me grow up. Stand on my own, y'know? You got to trust I won't slow you down. I have to be able to trust that you trust me, Dean. I know I don't deserve it, but... it has to start somewhere."

* * *

"I just... I don't believe."

"In what?"

"In you."

* * *

There's a gaping, angry wound in the earth, and it sucks up oxygen like a fire while Sam stands front and center in front of it; Dean's vision is blurred but Sam's face is clear, eyes wide and scared but ready. Accepting. He's going to jump; he thinks it's what he deserves, that he's less than all of them, that he's weak and sinful and this is some fucked up penance. Now he's here at the finale, and nobody in the world even knows what he's doing for them right now; nobody but Dean, only Dean. For a moment, he envisions a small baby boy: pictures the six-year-old kid who helped with his therapy and made sure Sammy never hit his head.

Made sure Sam never fell down.

There's a sense of failure here that crushes Dean's heart in his chest, and angry, miserable tears prick the corners of blood-shot and blackened eyes. Sam nods like he's got the baton, like he's going to run the last half mile, like Dean's done his part and this is it - this is their legacy. They'll win the medal; first place in stopping the end of the world. Dean tries to get up, is overtaken by the need to cushion his brother's head with his hands so he can't hit anything on the way down, but his legs refuse to work. It's over. It's done.

Sam smiles weakly, takes five stuttering steps toward the lip of eternity, and falls.

* * *

"Hey, hey, Sammy, good job! You'll be walking in no time."


End file.
